Foreign investors began to withdraw from Russia

Direct investment by foreigners in the Russian economy fell in the third quarter of 2018 at six billion dollars. According to RBC, these data are presented in prepared by the Higher school of economies (HSE) “Comments on the state and business”.

“Never before in the history of the balance of payments,” notes the study’s author, leading expert of the Center of the HSE Sergey Pukhov.

According to Central Bank data on the balance of payments, a record quarterly decrease of foreign direct investment since 1994. Also this is the first decline since the second quarter of 2015. It explained that because of the sanctions, American investors should get rid of stock and debt instruments of En+, Rusal and GAZ group.

In addition, according to experts, previously from 60 to 80 percent of foreign direct investments to Russia actually was a Russian money passed through offshore companies. Western sanctions, and domestic company at the “deoffshorisation” put an end to this practice.

Until the third quarter of foreign investments in the Russian economy continued to grow. For the first half of 2018 direct investments of non-residents in the private non-financial sector increased by almost 8.5 billion dollars.